Clinical Governance and Quality
IGPF is committed to providing high-quality, safe and effective care to our patients and communities. We have a robust clinical governance framework that ensures we maintain to the high standards of professional development, clinical care & patient safety.
Our clinical governance framework consists of the following elements at its core:
A Medical Director who leads the development and implementation of clinical policies, procedures, and guidelines, and provides clinical leadership and support to our staff and clinicians.
A board of directors that oversees the performance and clinical accountability of the IGPF on behalf of its member practices.
A clinical governance team that monitors and evaluates the quality and safety of our services, identifies, and manages risks, and promotes a culture of learning and improvement through service led Clinical Governance meetings involving patients, partners, and our board members.
A clinical audit programme that measures and improves the outcomes and experiences of our patients and staff and ensures compliance with national and local guidelines.
A patient centred approach that involves our patients and stakeholders in the design, delivery and evaluation of our services, and ensures their feedback and views are heard and acted upon.
Adoption of a learning approach to complaints and comments about our services, feeding into our Governance meetings and ensuring these are discussed and reflected on by our teams on a regular basis, and annually across our organisation.
We are proud of our achievements and the quality of care we provide, but we are always striving to improve and innovate. We welcome ongoing feedback and discussion with patients, partners, and stakeholders at any time about our services.
Complaints Quality Statement
IGPF has an open and honest approach to managing Patient Feedback & Complaints. This is key to promoting a culture of learning and continuous improvement in its delivery of services. The Board of Directors and Executive Team are committed to a corporate aim of striving for excellence in the quality of care and the management and monitoring of complaints.
This approach is demonstrated by the following:
A comprehensive Complaints Policy, which is in accordance with NHS Complaints Regulations 2009 and Regulation 16 of the Health and Social Care Act.
A named Complaints Lead responsible for supporting Service Leads in ensuring that all complaints are fully investigated in a manner appropriate to the seriousness and complexity of the complaint, in line with the complainant’s wishes.
A robust system for recording and monitoring complaints to ensure that responses to complaints are within agreed timescales.
A clinical governance framework which requires details of complaints and emerging themes to be reported to the IGPF Medical Director instantaneously and via service Clinical Governance meetings.
At the end of each financial year, IGPF will produce an Annual Complaints Report. This will include a summary of all complaints received, a summary of performance against response times, complaint themes and a summary of resulting actions / learning. This report will be published on the IGPF website.
Our aim is to continue to manage complaints efficiently and empathically.
We further aim to maintain the low numbers of complainants who are dissatisfied with our responses to their concerns. We recognise the need to continue to develop robust, integrated complaints systems across all IGPF locations and improve processes for sharing learning from complaints across all IGPF services and teams.